Never Dull

While I never thought that my life here would be boring I did think that I would have more down time than I have had in the last 2 days.  Here is the story. . . .

Tuesday was a normal day, meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and his Deputy Minister and sitting with them for about 1.5 hours and discussing the finer points of development in South Sudan.  In short he expects all of the partners (international agencies and NGOs) to be transparent and open with the state government about their goals and results.  The last thing that he wants is for their to be overlap of projects when there is so much work that needs to be done.

I get home to the hotel on Tuesday and order my hamburger and chips (french fries) and sit down to study and my cell rings.  My co-worker calls to tell me that he is not feeling well and needs to go to the clinic and someone who lives in his compound is taking him.  I tell him to let me know the outcome.

15 minutes later, I get a call that he is felling worse and he is by the side of the road and I need to go to him.  Keep in mind that I don't have the car.  So I call the driver and have him come and pick me up.  30 minutes later the driver arrives (he had to walk back to the office and then come and get me) we arrive at where my co-worker said he was and he was not by the side of the road but actually in a clinic.  What he thought I could do since he was already receiving medical attention I was not sure but I went in anyways. 

I talked to the very nice doctor who had already run some tests (malaria and typhoid) and had the results.  He had typhoid, go figure, glad I updated my vaccine!  She decides to treat him for malaria at the same time since they usually go together (even I knew that one) and writes up his bill, 155SSP for treatment. While that seems high it really is only $50, but my co-worker did not have that much with him so he needed me to loan him the money so he could get treatment.  What was I going to say, No, of course not, I said sure just pay me pack on pay day.

The big problem was that my co-worker was in charge of two meetings on Wednesday that he would not be able to facilitate these meetings so it fell to me.  Now keep in mind that I had only been in town for less than a week.

So my first meeting on Wednesday was with all of the partners that deal with Food Security in this area.  I had to present what my project had done in the month of May and what we were planning on doing for June.  Luckily another co-worker had sent this ahead of time and I had time to read up on this and knew what I was presenting.  I was able to meet the other partners in town from WFP, Canadian Red Cross, Caritas, CRS, FAO and the others.  It was an interesting meeting.

The second meeting was more of a challenge.  The farmers spoke several different languages so we had to translate everything into 2 languages and I don't think that they agreed on much. By the end 8pm I was ready to say take it or leave it but I just decided to say nothing and let the staff from Juba take the lead.  It was not a fun meeting.

By the end of the day I was ready for a shower and bed.  I am glad that today I can just catch up on emails and update everyone on what it going on because I have a meeting tomorrow with the Governor of the state and I have a feeling that it is going to run long.

I have a feeling that I am going to have a lot of days like yesterday coming up!

In my New Town

Well I have arrived in my new town in South Sudan and while everything I read prior to my arrival said that there were 500,000 people in this town I can tell you that there are no where near that many people.  The town is nice and surrounded by beautiful mountains but in general it is very flat and dry right now, even though it is supposed to be rainy season.

When I lived in Ghana all of the children would call out to me and call me "white person" so far here I have only heard it here twice and then when I waved to the cute little girl she rain away from me.  Who knows what the children think of white people here.

I have not started to learn the language here.  Some people speak Arabic and others speak a local tribal language and others speak Swahili.  I will try to figure it out at some point soon. A lot of the signs in town are written in both English and Arabic so at least I can figure out some things.

As for the food, because I know you were all worried I would starve over here, I have been eating very well.  The first night I arrived in town I went to a restaurant near the commercial airport (as opposed to the UN airport) and had really good barbecue.  OK so it was goat but if no one told me I would have never known.  The next day my great co-worker Puro took me to a local place for some local Sudanese food and I had bread and greens and once again fabulous.  Then I went to the Arabic chicken place and had a half a roasted chicken and lentils that had been prepared like hummus with bread that tasted like it came from Perrecas in Schenectady.  I told the guys that if I keep eating like this I am never going to loose the weight I gained in the US.

I went to the provision store to get some snack foods yesterday and what did I find but real Nutella and fresh dates that are grown in the northern area of South Sudan.  I am in heaven.  While I did not gain weight in Ghana, I think that I might here.  They also have a type of flat bread here that is almost like a tortilla so it looks like Mexican food will be possible if I can just find some cheese.

The hotel that I am staying at until my house is ready is the place where everyone seems to hang out on the weekends so I have already started to meet some other expats and make plans to learn my way around and learn what is going on.

Work is intense but fun and I have a great group of people in the office and in the field that are truly committed to making things better.  It is just a matter of putting all of the pieces together.

I hope that everyone had a good Memorial Day and I promise to start taking pictures soon.

Arrived in Juba

I arrived in Juba on Thursday morning after 2 days of travel and while the airport was small, getting through immigration moved quite quickly and everyone stayed in their respective lines, which did not happen in Kenya.

Getting all 8 of my bags was interesting.  Sometimes when I travel I think I must have a sign on my head that says "helpless woman" because the amount of men that kept coming around to help find my bags was amazing.  The customs man who had to check and mark all of my bags was very nice and welcomed me to South Sudan and said that he hoped I enjoyed my stay.  As my bags and the very nice porters were moving towards the company car I started to worry because I did not have any local currency to tip the nice men, I was once again saved by Alex, the logistics coordinator who talked to the men and then must have given them a really good tip because they all came up to me and thanked me.

Thursday was a short day of meetings and then rest to rid myself of some of the jet lag to prepare for the all day meeting and party on Friday.

On Friday they had arranged to for the staff from all three offices to meet in Juba for an orientation meeting followed by a barbecue to celebrate that all of the seeds for the first planting had been distributed.  It was nice to meet with all of the staff and to hear what their expectations of the program were and where the program started and what it had accomplished to date.

As for the barbecue it was some of the best goat and chicken that I have had.  The people who put together the spread did a great job.  There was rice, potatoes, vegetables, an east african dish that tasted like bland mashed potatoes and then some really good grilled chicken and goat.  You could tell that the  man who had grilled the goat had been doing it for a number of years because if he did not tell me that it was goat I would have thought that it was beef.

As for now I think that the plan is for me to head to Torit on Tuesday to look at the some possible places for me to stay and until the house is finalized I will be staying in the Torit hotel which is supposed to be really nice with internet, AC and hot water.

Now that I have an idea of the work I know that the work will be challenging but it that it will be meaningful.

I will update you more as time permits.

My bags are packed . . . .

So my bags are packed, yes all 8 of them, and I am ready to go.  I had thought that my days of being a high maintenance person were over and done but then I started to pack for my 2 year assignment to South Sudan and started to think about what I was going to need.  Needless to say the bags started to fill quickly.  The interesting thing is that when I put everything out before I put it in my suitcases and duffel bags I had more things for the kitchen and to cook with than I did clothes so I guess that I am not really high maintenance, I just like to cook.  I will just keep telling myself this anyway.

I leave on Tuesday and will arrive in Juba on Thursday morning.  I am not sure when I will get to my new town of Torit or what my housing will be like but I will send updates as soon as I find out.  I promise to do a better job keeping this updated.  After my meetings today I did find out that I should have internet in my office and will probably be able to get an internet USB modem for my house so I will be able to get online at home.

As I know more about my new home I will let you know.  Please keep in touch via email.